A wave of Trump horrifying Trump anecdotes hit the airwaves this month. It’s not that he did anything new, it’s that at least six new political tell-all books are about to hit the shelves. Trump himself has been a pathetic, doddering irrelevancy for over six months now, so one could easily ask why books about his alleged presidential misdeeds are any more relevant than he is. The answer, or at least our answer, is that though we were worried America was fast becoming a fascist hell-state, those were just suspicions. Everyone, even the most slavering critics, were just being naïve and these book show just how bad we were all underestimating the reality. As best we can tell no one of these book is ‘better’ than any other, but we thought we’d Spotlight them all just in case you wanted to confirm the latest story you heard on CNN.
“Frankly, We Did Win This Election”
Michael C. Bender, senior White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal
(from the publisher) Beginning with President Trump’s first impeachment and ending with his second, FRANKLY, WE DID WIN THIS ELECTION chronicles the inside-the-room deliberations between Trump and his campaign team as they opened 2020 with a sleek political operation built to harness a surge of momentum from a bullish economy, a unified Republican Party, and a string of domestic and foreign policy successes-only to watch everything unravel when fortunes suddenly turned.
“Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency”
Michael Wolff, author of “Fire and Fury”
(from the publisher) Wolff embedded himself in the White House in 2017 and gave us a vivid picture of the chaos that had descended on Washington. Almost four years later, Wolff finds the Oval Office even more chaotic and bizarre, a kind of Star Wars bar scene. At all times of the day, Trump, behind the Resolute desk, is surrounded by schemers and unqualified sycophants who spoon-feed him the “alternative facts” he hungers to hear―about COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, and, most of all, his chance of winning reelection. Once again, Wolff has gotten top-level access and takes us front row as Trump’s circle of plotters whittles down to the most enabling and the president reaches beyond the bounds of democracy as he entertains the idea of martial law and balks at calling off the insurrectionist mob that threatens the institution of democracy itself.
“I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year”
Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig, authors of “A Very Stable Genius”
(from the publisher) The true story of what took place in Donald Trump’s White House during a disastrous 2020 has never before been told in full. What was really going on around the president, as the government failed to contain the coronavirus and over half a million Americans perished? Who was influencing Trump after he refused to concede an election he had clearly lost and spread lies about election fraud? To answer these questions, Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig reveal a dysfunctional and bumbling presidency’s inner workings in unprecedented, stunning detail.
Yasmeen Abutaleb & Damian Paletta, Washington Post reporters
(from the publisher) “Since the day Donald Trump was elected, his critics warned that an unexpected crisis would test the former reality-television host-and they predicted that the president would prove unable to meet the moment. In 2020, that crisis came to pass, with the outcomes more devastating and consequential than anyone dared to imagine. Nightmare Scenario is the complete story of Donald Trump’s handling-and mishandling-of the COVID-19 catastrophe, during the period of January 2020 up to Election Day that year. Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta take us deep inside the White House, from the Situation Room to the Oval Office, to show how the members of the administration launched an all-out war against the health agencies, doctors, and scientific communities, all in their futile attempts to wish away the worst global pandemic in a century.”
Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show
Jonathan Karl, ABCNews Chief Washington Correspondent
(from the publisher) Nobody is in a better position to tell the story of the shocking final chapter of the Trump show than Jonathan Karl. As the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl told the story of Trump’s rise in the New York Times bestseller Front Row at the Trump Show. Now he tells the story of Trump’s downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency and packed with original reporting and on-the-record interviews with central figures in this drama who are telling their stories for the first time.
The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal
Mary L. Trump, Donald Trump’s niece
(from the publisher) The Reckoning will examine America’s national trauma, rooted in our history but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of current events and the Trump administration’s corrupt and immoral policies. Our failure to acknowledge this trauma, let alone root it out, has allowed it to metastasize. Whether it manifests itself in rising levels of rage and hatred, or hopelessness and apathy, the stress of living in a country we no longer recognize has affected all of us. America is suffering from PTSD―a new leader alone cannot fix us.
